Originally Posted by Bart
We both agree that mandatory secondary screening, as indicated by SSSS on the boarding pass, is unnecessary and adds nothing to security.
We disagree on how to resolve alarms caused at the WTMD. You believe there should be a way to pin-point it to a certain area. I support the current policy of re-screening the entire body, this time with a hand-wand, and detecting/resolving each and every metal item. To me, this is a thorough follow-up to the initial screening process that eliminates any doubt that a person was concealing something on his or her body. A targeted or limited secondary screening is based on a guess of what probably caused the alarm. Perhaps we may someday have technology which allows us to pinpoint areas more accurately; however, our society gets hung up over the fact that this may result in images of naked bodies on some computer screen. Kind of hard to get to where we need to be with such Puritanical attitudes.
I would have replied to this sooner, but FT went down.
I disagree that things can't be targeted in secondary.
If my shoes meet the profile, but I didn't alarm the WTMD, swab my shoes. Look me over to see if I appear to have any suspiscious bulges on me.
If I alarm the WTMD, wand me. If there's something that can't be resolved by the wand, then pat that SPECIFIC area. Again, pat down a specific area if an unusual bulge is seen.
This stuff is done with bags all the time (except with SSSS when you pretty much have to dump everything). When I alarmed at SFO because of a battery, they stopped searching once they found the battery. They didn't dump my bag.
Pat downs could be a lot more limited than they are now. Especially when you get one just because you dared not to take off the shoes.
The imagers have nothing to do with a Puritanical attitude. More often than not, the ACLU is far from Puritanical (NAMBLA anyone?). It's just that the government has no damn reason to view someone's naked body on the screen, especially for a routine check. Do you guys REALLY need to see someone's pubes on screen to make sure they're not a threat? Do a wireframe or solid image that doesn't show any feature yet can show any contraband. What's so hard about that?
Super